The challenges of upgrading TYPO3

Is it all necessary?

When the times comes, upgrade your TYPO3 website. Enhanced security, functionality and speed are some of the reasons. And it pays off, version 11 is blazingly fast.

Keeping a system up to date more frequently with the minor updates in between is cheaper in the end and brings less worries than just be satisfied with the larger updates or, as I prefer to call it, upgrades¹.

But this maintenance in small steps is no warranty to avoid all problems. In particular when the website grew bigger over the years and functionality increased without an eye for the system's base. As a result, what you read in the papers about ICT projects and infrastructural projects exceeding the budgets, may happen to you as well on your scale.

A TYPO3 website can run for a very long time. Even now we can find websites that run very well in version 4, built 15 years ago. But the time will come... and if it is critical for your business, then yet be prepared.

Back to the small updates. What it does guarantee, when executed at nearly every release, is a good overview about problems and risks you will have to face sooner or later. Being technically up to date feeds the roadmap for the future of your web system and sets a manageable infrastructure.

Budgets are often limited and the short terms prevail. What shoud go to maintenance is spent mainly on new functions - that are built on current statuses. Where budgets are narrow, developers are not able to create the functions with an extra eye on the future. But if we agree to build to the best, an update or upgrade is sometimes just what we need first to look at. At least, we must consider the roadmap of TYPO3 itself, as it is the actual base.

Source and see further: typo3.org/cms/roadmap

Where does all the software come from?

In the Open Source world, things are a bit off. We have the base software – TYPO3 CMS in this case – and we have extensions² to that. Extensions add functionality, are created by third parties or by ourselves, and are often ordered by our valued customers or created as an experiment. Anyone can create an extension, you don’t need special permissions, because it is Opensource. Of course you need the skills, but it is more accessible than adding apps to the AppStore.

The TYPO3 CMS base is freely downloadable software that you can install anywhere and anytime. In this case it is provided by a firm organization that spans the world, that protects, improves and spreads it. The business case is not a story here to be told, but I can tell you that it is a solid one. I have seen its development for twenty years now.

Extensions are generally developed by TYPO3 agencies or freelancers. They provide in much of the functionality. TYPO3 sets the base, for instance, user and login functionality, and others can build blog, shopping cart, form, and complete community, social media, holiday house management, time tracking, playlist, questionnaire, event management, you name it functionality on top of it. See Appendix 1 for the business model of free extensions.

Maintenance of extensions can be a bit tricky. When the developer is running behind or has stopped his business, an upgrade can get difficult because versions and technology do not match with the lates TYPO version.

As a customer you must be in the position that you can rely on the complete system, the full technical infrastructure:

base + extensions + services.

This is where ViBiS step in.

But before we continue this question:

Does an up-to-date TYPO3 system really help me with my business?

First of all I can tell, from practice, that systems like WordPress and Magento face similar issues. Templates in WordPress are left in an early stage and you may find yourself in nasty trouble at every update. Magento needs special servers by now, otherwise you are on a dead end. To address a few. And in the Closed Source world, things are not necessarily better but certainly more expensive³.

Secondly, size matters. A simple website with modern design, normal content - text, images, video - and a contact form is easy to update and upgrade and will take little time, hardly one hour. But the more extras, the more work you can expect, and that can add up to weeks (fte).

Yes it is worth it. Being up-to-date brings more speed and improvements that pay off. Being the up-to-datest in high competitive markets is even a requirement, also for the online presence.

TYPO3 CMS is a very solid partner in this. That is what this story is about. Like with everything in life, you have to understand what you do if you want to do it good. And that is, to not lower your position to the software but to keep control of the intelligence. So, that’s exactly what we do: stay on top.

For Open Source in general goes that you’re not bound to licences and limitations. That alone makes a big difference. For instance, the mass mailing extension in TYPO3 – direct_mail – sends out tens of thousands of HTML emails for free; think about that if you use MailChimp, which has its free version of course, but up to a limit.

That is about pricing just for the one extra function. You can calculate what it means for a full stack of additional functions, for instance combined with a webshop and SEO services.

The quality of Open Source

Generally speaking, the quality of this software is controlled by a much larger group of skilled IT professionals than proprietary software. It is open to anyone on the planet. So if executed well, it is the best you can get. Like I said, TYPO3 is achored in a solid organization, so yes, good and even excellent quality of the base is guaranteed.

The costs of operation

What you pay for is the implementation of the system, and the technical maintenance. The content after all is maintained by yourself or your editors, internally or externally hired, and basically it is up to you what you spend on that. We can do the content management for you as well, but there are plenty of content agencies around (and it is a story for another blog).

It is something you don't want to hear about but better not ignore

3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and counting

Over the past two decades, we have upgraded from TYPO3 version 3.6 to 6, skipping non-existing 5; further to 7, 8 and 9. Sometimes from 4 directly to 7 or higher. Simple websites and also those with much functionality. And more recently from 9 to 10 to 11.

You would expect that it became easier over the years. Two answers to that: yes and no. Upgrading to 11 can turn into a nightmare, to be honest, indifferent if it is from 9 or 10. By the way, if it is from 9, you better take a step in between to 10. And what about upgrading to version 12?

A main step in upgrading: Composer

Not all installations use the Composer dependency management tool. Yet! So first of all, TYPO3 installations need to get transferred to a Composer driven setup. To be able to use 12LTS⁴ in the future, Composer is required stuff. On this, TYPO3 has a clearly documented routine and also points to possible problems.

Composer and extensions

Composer is a quality concept. Without it, it was more easy to handle the extensions' code but stability was somewhat neglected. With Composer the version dependencies are defined. In your website system you want to use stable versions and not all versions can work together. Now the Composer setup defines a system configuration that works successfully.

But it is to the developer to test his software and set the right dependencies. So, two things: developers can say that their extension works with TYPO3 version 11 and with PHP8, but in fact it doesn’t. They don’t do that on purpose. Bugs are hidden deeper in the system and society has accepted the existence of bugs.

It goes also the other way around: the software works but it is not defined as such.

On occasions that an extension is abandoned by its developer, or its development runs far behind, there is and there will be no required version available and that blocks the upgrade to version TYPO3 11LTS, or 10LTS or 12LTS. You want 11LTS on PHP8 because of improved speed, or other extensions you want to use just need 11LTS. There are oh so many reasons to upgrade. And now an unwilling extension holds you back.

No need to get confused!

Because this is - again - where ViBiS steps in with knowledge built up in twenty years.

We are trained and capable of helping you to upgrade at any time. We can set the system to Composer for you. We can upgrade to 10LTS, 11LTS and 12LTS (9LTS is a no go nowadays but still possible with updates within the 9 range with a paid for 9ELTS4).

Upgrading to 10LTS, or within 10LTS updating to the latest bug and security fixes, is a piece of cake. Going to 11LTS though, can be a real pain. But since we can expect that TYPO3 10LTS goes into its Extended phase halfway 2023, it is a step you should take or at least prepare for.

Steps to get your website to TYPO3 CMS 11LTS

Re-engineering

We can re-engineer the third party extensions you love so much and want to keep, to software that works in 11LTS. We can do that with extensions that are – seemingly – abandoned and provisionally with extensions that are slowly updated by their maintainers but can be merged later on. We always try to get in contact with the original creator. We can do the work in the Open Source networks in Github and Packagist, but also privately just for you on the webserver. So it is also possible that we update the extensions that are created solely for you by third parties.

Independency

In any case, you remain independent from your service provider – and so, also from ViBiS. It may seem otherwise but there are plenty of big and small companies that can help you, so you should feel in control of this. We use the standards next to the cheapest but serious options to keep your business running and anyone with the right knowledge can take it on in the future.

Support

ViBiS is able to tackle all of the problems that can occur… and will occur, because “fingers crossed” does not exist in software country and Murphy is always around the corner. We do not disappear after the work is done and paid, our support is there until it works.

Basically, this goes the same way. Like I said, now we must use Composer. For systems that are already built with Composer, upgrading can be easy. But again, are extensions in line with 12LTS? That's not always the case and here we have to decide between fixing extensions for 12LTS ourselves or waiting until the extensions are developed further and ready for 12LTS. Not a problem in itself, 11LTS has not the extra benefits of 12LTS but it is a very solid and fast platform that will be functionally maintained until Q2 of 2024 and kept safe and free of bugs until Q2 of 2026.

¹ Updates are improvements of the code within a version number. Example: within version 11 you have 11.5.24 for instance. The 24 represents a minor update from 11.5.23 and the 5 a major update from 11.4.30 to 11.5.0. Going from 11 to 12 is what I call an upgrade in which very large and conceptual system changes are implemented.

² An extension is often called a plugin. In fact, an extension holds a plugin for frontend functionality or a module for backend functions, or both.

³ The cost-benefit analysis is not that simple, but with the right support – and that’s what this article is about – with Opensource you are better of financially.

⁴ LTS and ELTS indicate that this is the Long Time Support version or the Extended Long Time Support version. For instance, 11LTS stands for the 11.5 range that at this time of writing is 11.5.24. Support of a version ends at one time. For instance, the LTS of 9 has ended but for companies that must rely on that version, extended paid-for support in bug fixes and security updates is still available.

There are quite some solid extensions to the base; “news”, “tt_products”, “powermail” to name a few that are there for a very long time. The number of good extensions is much higher and over the years I think at least 7,500 have reached the TYPO3 Extension Repository (TER). And then we have the proprietary ones, built exclusively for customers without being uploaded for use by the community slash whole world.

I name these extensions because they represent a few business cases on their own. The first one now has a paid management dashboard to handle the blog and news items. With the second one you need to pay for the latest version, which means, you may not be able to upgrade the base TYPO3 system to the latest if you want it all for free. And the third one seems to be completely free; the developer has a different income flow. Developers of other extensions also ask for payments, for instance a voluntary contribution or for extra support or to unlock extra functionality.

And it’s all fair of course, developers need to pay their calories too. But maintaining the extensions you use can run behind and in rare occasions, or come to a stop. But in every case there is the possibility to continue maintenance by taking over the extension development, or looking for other extensions that can replace it.

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